This presentation follows on from central thesis of an on-going PhD-project on the imagination of the Nordic welfare state in the age of ‘cognitive capitalism’ (see Moulier-Boutang 2011) through a case study labeled as ‘Nordic childcare know-how’ in China. In this presentation, I focus on how changing economic structures – the qualitative tendency of information, knowledge, etc. as hegemonic, e.g. ‘the age of human capital’ (see Becker 2002) – also changes the role of public welfare institutions in this system: Welfare services such as care and education have a tendency to enter the sphere of commodities on the global market. In relation hereto, I will discuss two questions; 1) how is it possible to comprehend, theoretically, these welfare commodities as, on the one hand, reflecting a certain production of subjectivities and, on the other, a specific production of locality bound to something as ‘Nordic’. 2) How can we understand the need for this export/import phenomenon and the clues it gives us for understanding the on-going transformation of the world economy. In order to discuss these questions I focus on a particular empirical situation: ‘Nordic childcare know-how’ in China. While China has experienced a steady economic development over the past decades, there is now growing concern that this development is declining and is thus caught in the crisis narrative of a so-called middle-income trap. In this presentation, I will address how China, among other things, looks towards the Nordic countries to address this economic crisis narrative through an increasing expansion of welfare institutions, particularly ‘early child education’ in order to modify the country’s labour-force composition. The discussion in the presentation is two-fold. Firstly, I elaborate on the characteristics of ‘Nordic childcare know-how’ and how it is transformed into an export ‘concept’ or ‘commodity’. Secondly, I argue that the interest in and import of ‘Nordic childcare know-how’ represents a case in the on-going process of the rising middle class in China trying to escape from the label as ‘workshop of the world’ namely from the narrative of ‘Made in China’ to ‘Innovation in China’ (see Pun 2016, Pun and Koo 2018). In turn, this discussion, I argue, allows us to understand how the Nordic welfare state is imagined as a constructive way to cope with the obstacles of contemporary 21st century capitalism in China.

Becker, G. (2002): “The Age of Human Capital”. In: Lazear (Ed.): Education in the Twenty-first Century, 3–8. Hoover Institution Press. Moulier-Boutang, Y. (2011): Cognitive Capitalism. Polity Press. Pun, N. (2016): Migrant Labor in China. Polity Press. Pun, N. & Koo, A. (2018): “Double contradiction of schooling: class reproduction and working-class agency at vocational schools in China”. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 1-15