A week ago, some 30 college students from Southwest University of Political Science & Law spent a Golden Week day doing something they would never want to do unless it was part of a school project.

They joined the "pole army".

Cutely known as "bangbang army", its ranks are made up of migrant workers with shoulder poles. They are as integral a part of Chongqing Municipality as tourists are to the Forbidden City. Because the hilly terrain of the city presents a problem for motor traffic, these workers help carry groceries and other stuff for residents who have to climb up flights of steps to reach their homes.

They are at the bottom of the pecking order. For these students, it was a simulation of life as it could have been - if they hadn't studied hard and gotten into college, that is.

To get business, many of them cut prices so low that they ended up earning only 1 yuan for a whole day.

One of the law students was visibly shaken. His parents are in real estate, giving him a monthly allowance of 3,000 yuan. On that day, his sweat brought him only 1 yuan.

I assume the organizers had something else in mind. They may have wanted the students, who will probably go into politics and law after graduation, to understand the hardship of the disenfranchised and the downtrodden, so they would speak for their rights upon graduating into positions of power.

The immediate effect is that the students will work harder and get as far away from the lower depths of society as much as possible.

Last year, US Senator John Kerry told a group of college students that they could either work hard in school or "get stuck" in Iraq.

The joke was designed to target President George W. Bush and his Iraq policy, but the implication is that those in the military are somehow uneducated, which "is insulting and shameful", as Bush criticized.

Similarly, according to the politically correct principles of the Chinese social mandate, we interpret physical work in only a positive light.

In the aftermath of the May 4th Movement, there was a concerted effort to glorify machine operating and farm tilling. Some 40 years ago, millions of urban youths were "sent down to remote mountains and countryside for reeducation". People went happily, waving flags and singing.

But they found they weren't exactly in for camping trips. Many lamented their lost youth, although many have also discovered and developed positive values from their gruelling experiences.

One cannot create a class-free society by extolling physical labor or forcing people into it. Even the term "sent down" implies inequality.

The cold truth is, industrialization has rendered obsolete most forms of physical labor. And whatever remains will be handled by those with little or no job skill. The value of work is no longer measured by the sweat you shed but rather, by the brain cells you put into it.

A worker who uses his body as a tool of transport is worth less in economic terms than one who operates a truck, who, in turn, is worth less than the one who designed it. That's the economic reality, and it applies everywhere.

However, it is morally wrong to look down upon those who engage in backbreaking labor. As a society, we should find ways to improve the economic value of their work by providing job training. As we look up at the skyline and see the glittering skyscrapers, we should take off our hats to their builders, even though nobody would want to be one if he has a better opportunity.

Email: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/12/2007 page4)