Managing the problem of too much capital: Coal power overcapacity, migrant labor sacrifice, and structural problems in contemporary Chinese political economy

Abstract

China's electricity sector suffers from significant overcapacity in coalfired generation. Between 2000 and 2020, China built more than 970 gigawatts of new coal power capacity, accounting for more than 70% of all new coal capacity worldwide. Building large amounts of coal and other generation capacity has continued despite clear indicators of overcapacity before the mid-2010s. This article uses a Marxian political economy theoretical framework to assert that generation overcapacity is a symptom of China's broader problem of capital overaccumulation. More specifically, it is the result of governance choices to deal with the overaccumulation problem. In so doing, this article presents a new conceptual pathway to understanding overcapacity in the electricity sector, which mainstream discourse attributes to bad planning and mistaken economic assumptions. Through the case of Chinese coal generation overcapacity, this article advocates for examining contemporary political economy issues through the conceptual lens of overaccumulation and devaluation management—in China and beyond. It proceeds by highlighting three central features of structural problems in contemporary Chinese political economy. The first is the expression of capital overaccumulation as massive coal generation overcapacity. The second is the structural bias toward overbuilding generation infrastructure; this is due both to the bulky and long-lived nature of electricity sector fixed capital and the sector's key role in circulating capital throughout the economy. The third feature is how—given insufficient consumption demand—capital is offloaded spatially, temporally, and biophysically onto migrant contract workers. Together, these features trace governance decisions made by state entities at different scales and times to deal with the imperatives of capital while maintaining economic, social, and political legitimacy. This framework highlights the ongoing management of overaccumulation and devaluation as a core governance imperative. This imperative undergirds current class warfare, and in this case of fossil fuel capital expansion, carries grim implications for climate change.